I’m terribly pleased with the veil. DHL is coming to get it this morning, and I only had to fill out two copies of the customs form.

I got nearly two rows of Princess done last night. The next time I abandon it, I must take care to stop at a similarly manageable point. This knitting is the absolute antithesis of Olympics, and utterly blissful. The possibility of ever finishing it is pretty remote, even after the months of work I have already put in. It certainly won’t happen in ’06. That fact lifts all responsibility from my shoulders. I knit, I enjoy the yarn and the pattern it’s making for me, and the world can get on with spinning on its axis or whatever it wants to do.

Meanwhile the yarn for my sister’s shawl arrived yesterday. Sharon doesn’t waste time. Three balls of a wonderful rich blue. Figuring out how much to order took a bit of doing – I hope we got it right. I’m going to use the edging and the shape of Amedro’s Cobweb Evening Wrap, choosing my own lace patterns for the central panels. She specifies “seven hanks” of Shetland cobweb. That had to be translated into ounces, into yards, into metres, into grams.

There was an unexpected and delightful bonus which only the obsessional can share. I keep a spreadsheet, as I mentioned recently, of yarn-in and yarn-out. The score for this year now stands at 22 balls in, 1 ball out. But it could have been worse – I thought I had ordered six 25-gram balls. What I got was three 50-gram ones!

Comments

Mama Lu, thank you very much indeed for the links to the pages about Persian script. I agree, the face you mention looks very similar to our beast. I haven’t heard from Helen in Thessaloniki yet. I will recommend those links to her. Alexander intervened to say that he thought all such things were essentially prayers (and to tell me how to copy text even when the option isn't offered on the screen).

Lorna, that is an exciting thought, about growing Oriental mustard and other spicy leaves in the part of my garden which the rabbits have access to. I have learned through the years that some things are safe there; it would be wonderful to add to the list. Potatoes and rhubarb are perfectly safe. A neighbour once told me that rabbits don’t like broad beans – I wouldn’t have believed it from a lesser gardener, but it turns out she’s right. Fortunately, we love 'em. Then I read in the FT that courgettes are immune – that also proves to be true. And they don’t much like perpetual spinach. They’ll nibble it a bit in hard times, but it’ll recover in the spring. If I get away with Oriental salad stuff, I may try to write an article for Kitchen Garden magazine on the subject!

My sprouting alfalfa is now ready to eat, I think. The onion seeds only got mouldier – not a good random choice for a first attempt.